Readers' comments

I think the sorry state of Japanese politics is a result of the political aloofness of the Japanese people. Politicians have to go out to the streets to beg and 'buy?' disinterested voters to the voting box. How else do you expect the politicians to behave once the election is over? That being said, the current crop of politicians are weak and lack a focal point around which to mobilize the masses.

Yes, no substantive lasting impact. Hardly Koizumi's fault though, he certainly has no control when he's no longer in office. To me, Koizumi offered a glimpse of what Japanese government could be. After his tenure it all went back to business as usual.

As for Ozawa, he and the CCP remind me of Nixon and Mao; two peas in a pod. Or at least cut from the same cloth. Though Nixon was a poodle with a lisp compared to Mao. I think Ozawa would fit in nicely in Beijing.

Not nearly enough, I'd say. Four years after he left things in Japan are as shambolic as they ever were. Ozawa has been able to use his dirty money to create a party within a party by buying the loyalty of DPJ election candidates, the value of votes in depopulated rural areas remains disproportionately high, and no one seems smart enough to realise that a bicameral legislature with almost equally powerful upper and lower houses only really worked as long as the LDP could keep rigging elections. Koizumi demonstrated that the Japanese people don't actually want boring non-entities or corrupt old men in charge, but that's all that's on offer.

What the hell is that? I'm aware that comment may be a little misleading as it may have been taken somewhat out of context but how does that thinking help Japan in any way?

Japan needs unity not more bickering and in-fighting. I know we're all aware of this and I'm not saying anything new but sometimes I just want to smack their heads together.

Huyu,

I'll take Koizumi's devil worshiping over the much more sinister Ozawa any day. Koizumi may offend people but he did some good for his country. The same can't be said of Ozawa for at least the last 30 years.

Relations between Japan and China had been kept well by a crop of "dirty" politicians such as the knicker worshiping Mr. Ozawa. But they decided to replace them with the clean, but incompetent, prime ministers, it has been downhill since.

First with the devil worshiping Mr. Koizumi who knelt to the shrine of Mr. Hitler and Himler's replacements, and cheered up the uniformed-clowns of the Japanese imperial army. And now Mr. Kan who seems to be a deputy to the hawkish Foreign Minister, "the (boiling) Young Blood" Mr. Maehara.